


adrift

by zipegs



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abigail Hobbs Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Horror, POV Outsider, Post-Season/Series 02, Psychological Horror, one brief instance of gore/body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25383358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zipegs/pseuds/zipegs
Summary: If Harper knows what’s good for her, she’ll keep Abigail at arm’s length. Be her coworker and maybe her friend, but never draw close enough to see if claws are hiding beneath her short, unpainted fingernails.Then again, Harper’s never been very good at self-preservation.
Relationships: Abigail Hobbs/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 31
Collections: Multifandom Horror Exchange (2020)





	adrift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [webofdreams89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/webofdreams89/gifts).



> Re-dated for author reveals

When Abigail Hobbs walks into Johnson’s Family Market in Fishers, Indiana one unremarkable Saturday in June, the first thing Harper notices is her eyes.

They’re a sharp, piercing blue—jagged fragments of sea glass pressed into the pale sand of her face. When Harper catches her gaze, the eye contact zings through her with the heat and power of a lightning strike. Her lips part unconsciously, and she stands there for a moment, unable to speak around the rush of sensation washing through her. Attraction, she thinks, but something else, too—something deep and dark in the pit of her stomach that’s there and gone in the span of a second. It leaves a mealy kind of residue, a dull, soft feeling in her belly like bruised fruit.

It’s not hard to ignore the sensation, once Abigail’s face softens and her tulip-pink lips pull up in a close-mouthed smile.

But Harper can’t quite overcome the apparent shallowness of her gaze—like a swimming pool with a false bottom. She thinks of lakes dozens of feet deep, so clear that the ground beneath seems but a hand’s reach away.

Abigail feels like that, Harper thinks, watching her gently tuck one side of her hair behind her ear.

Like wading into a pond and realizing it’s an ocean. 

Like turning your head mid-stroke and realizing you can no longer see the shore.

\---

It’s easy, at first, to explain away. Abigail talks little of her life before Fishers—always pulls back into herself whenever the topic comes up, a turtle seeking the safety of its shell. Harper knows that she came from Baltimore, that she doesn’t seem to have any friends or family, that she hasn’t been to college yet but plans to go someday. That she always wears a scarf, even on the hottest days in July, when Mr. Johnson’s air conditioner stops working. She watches Abigail fiddle with it sometimes, rolling the knot between her fingertips, stroking the tails that hang down over her collarbone.

Abigail catches her staring one afternoon—lifts her eyes from the register and meets her gaze so coolly it’s like being dunked in ice water. Harper freezes, hand still reaching into the bowels of the shelf she’s facing, body going hot then cold then hot again. Abigail’s mouth is tight and small, expression unreadable as she passes change to the customer at the counter and hands her a white plastic bag. Harper remains motionless, an animal that’s caught a predator’s eye, until the bell above the door jangles, and they’re alone again.

As the silence stretches, she feels her face grow hot, but she can’t look away.

After a long moment, Abigail drops her gaze, hands lowering smooth and controlled to the metal bag holder on the side of the counter. She peels a new one carefully open and spreads it wide so that its mouth gapes in expectation of the next customer’s purchase.

Heart pounding, Harper turns back to the shelf.

She recognizes the shape of pain in Abigail, even if she can’t pinpoint its source. Figures Abigail will talk about it in her own time—or maybe she won’t; whatever it is, she thinks something big enough to draw a girl from the east coast all the way out to Indiana is bound to leave some jagged pieces behind.

So she brushes off Abigail’s sharp edges. Pries out the uneasiness that lodges deep in her skin like a deer tick, trying not to look at its wriggling shape as she casts it back into the grass. 

Harper likes Abigail. She’s smart and pretty and interesting, and Harper feels like there’s a whole different world hidden inside her, locked just behind her teeth. Harper wants to coax it out of her, open her up and reveal what’s fluttering within, nestled in the matryoshka doll’s deepest layer. Wants to connect. To understand.

Abigail’s younger than Harper, but Harper admires her. She doesn’t know that she’d have the strength to buy a bus ticket and move to an unfamiliar city 10 hours away, start her life over all alone, and hold herself with the power and confidence Abigail has. Harper has a hard enough time balancing her personal life, classes at the community college, and this job.

As she pulls cans of stewed tomatoes and chicken stock to the front of the painted metal shelves with numb fingers, something small and distantly uneasy in her thinks that maybe this is the best way to know Abigail—a distant kind of interest and regard. That Abigail is the kind of creature you’re meant to look at from afar, whose beauty is just as much a warning as it is a lure. That there might be a reason she has closed herself off. If Harper knows what’s good for her, she’ll keep Abigail at arm’s length. Be her coworker and maybe her friend, but never draw close enough to see if claws are hiding beneath her short, unpainted fingernails.

Then again, Harper’s never been very good at self-preservation.

\---

It’s a bit like prising open an oyster shell.

Abigail keeps her lips wrapped tightly around her secrets. She guards her personal life as though it were a blue pearl, hoards privacy like gold. But though Harper’s fingers bruise with effort, and that same little voice inside her screams to leave Abigail alone, she’s invested. Captivated. Another Pandora, determined to open her box despite the consequences. If Abigail were poison, Harper thinks, she’d drink her down willingly and relish the burn.

Still, it’s slow going—nearly a month passes before Abigail accepts even one of Harper’s invitations for ice cream—and Harper still feels a strange sort of fear around her. The inexplicable kind, like the deep, unfounded dread that follows the last flip of a light switch before bed, or the quiet shifting of a house late at night. She’s not _afraid_ of Abigail, not really, nor does she have any reason to be; Abigail has never threatened her or anyone else, or yelled, or done anything to indicate she’s dangerous. It’s just—a sense. An impression. And maybe it’s just Harper’s mind playing tricks on her, the way a person can conjure paranoia from nothing when walking down the street alone at night.

But Abigail smiles at her now, sometimes—small, restrained twitches of her mouth—and ducks her head to hide it. It makes Harper’s already racing heart stutter even further out of rhythm, though the mirth never quite reaches Abigail’s eyes. Harper thinks there must be some threshold of happiness she can’t bear to cross, some line she’s incapable of toeing.

They start going to Riverside Farms on the weekends, for lunch or sundaes or just to walk around the grounds. Abigail likes it there, Harper notices. She seems more comfortable than usual, and her eyes linger on the cornfields, the barn, the line of trees.

“You have places like this back in Baltimore?” Harper asks, dipping her plastic spoon into her paper cup. It’s late—they’ve started coming even on weekdays, sometimes, after they get off from work—and the sun has already dipped down below the horizon. Under the bluish-white outdoor lights, Abigail looks even paler than she usually does.

“I don’t think so.” Abigail looks into her ice cream cup as she speaks, playing with the chocolate syrup. It glistens wet and black in the light.

“Oh.”

The crickets fill the silence between them, nearly shrill in their loudness.

When Harper’s afraid the quiet will become impenetrable, Abigail says, “It reminds me of home.”

“Home?”

“In Minnesota.”

Harper hadn’t known Abigail had lived anywhere other than Baltimore. She can see the door to Abigail’s past cracking open, and she sticks her fingers in between the jamb before it can swing shut—they may bruise in the process, but that’s a risk she’s willing to take. Abigail’s expression is unreadable—she’s watching Harper carefully, with some emotion that is decidedly not nostalgia. Harper swallows.

“You lived in Minnesota?”

“That’s where I grew up.” She glances down at her ice cream—black cherry, with toasted coconut flakes and chocolate syrup—and spoons some into her mouth before she looks up at Harper and continues. “My dad—he used to take me hunting. Out in the woods.”

Harper feels goosebumps form over her arms. It’s getting chilly, she notes distantly. Now that the sun’s gone, the day’s heat has dissipated, and a blanket of coldness settles over her like snow.

“I’ve—I’ve never been. Hunting. Or, uh, to Minnesota.” Actually, Harper finds the whole idea of hunting scary and kind of wrong. She’s always thought it takes a particular type of person to find joy in watching something die. To brag about it, or post photos holding some poor, slaughtered animal with milky, unseeing eyes. It’s about power, she thinks. Holding someone’s life in your hands, and being able to extinguish it without any real effort at all.

Abigail smiles. Just a small, minute quirk of her lips.

It sets Harper’s teeth on edge.

“Maybe I’ll take you some time,” she says. Her voice is light and teasing, but there’s something hungry in her eyes.

Harper shivers, and forces herself to smile.

\---

Their relationship grows slowly, like thick, verdant moss. No roots, but it clings to its anchor all the same, swallowing stone and bark and dirt with its soft, dense pelt. Harper feels herself being drawn further into Abigail’s confidence—not welcomed into it entirely, but dragged past the first sandbar, at least. She’s still careful about her past, sprinkling snippets of it over their discussions and leaving Harper to fill in the deep, empty gaps, but their conversation comes easier. Freer. Sometimes, it’s just Harper doing the talking, but Abigail always listens, with a sharpness and intensity that doesn’t always match the subject at hand.

She becomes protective, too.

They’re working an evening shift at Mr. Johnson’s one Saturday when two boys come in, probably students at the community college. They set their sights on Harper immediately, muttering to each other under their breath, laughing. Doling out innuendos and thinly veiled insults. Harper goes red, but keeps her mouth shut. She’s used to the occasional heckling, though it bothers her all the same, turns her fingers clumsy and her face hot. Usually, she just keeps her head down and waits for them to leave. But that was _before_ Abigail.

“You’re being rude.”

The boys look up at her, and Harper does too, surprised. Abigail has come out from behind the counter, arms folded across her chest. She’s small, thin, dressed in a brightly colored blouse and dark jeans; by all rights, she should be laughable in her attempt at menace. But there’s a quiet power in her gaze, the lift of her chin. A cold-steel resolve. Harper swallows, and rubs nervously at her chest.

“Aw, come on, we’re just having a little fun, right?” One of the boys elbows his friend, who snickers.

“Have it somewhere else.”

“What?”

“I said, _have it somewhere else._ ” Abigail’s mouth twists as she speaks, lip curling with distaste. She drops her arms to her sides, taking a step forward, and a shadow passes over her face—something dark and dangerous.

Wide-eyed, Harper can’t bring herself to speak. She’s never liked confrontation, and she’s never seen Abigail quite like this before—powerful and pointed, coiled and waiting to strike. A viper in the grass. Her gaze flicks between Abigail and the boys, unsure where to settle.

“Okay, honey, relax—”

“I’ll _relax_ when you two leave,” Abigail cuts in. “But first, I think you should apologize.”

Harper’s mouth opens. She struggles to find words. “Abigail, it’s—”

Abigail’s gaze swings over to Harper, slicing through her like an axe.

She falls silent.

“Come on,” the first boy mumbles, pulling his friend back toward the entrance. His friend isn’t as quick to give in, though, and glares at Abigail, even as he allows himself to be directed.

“Fucking bitch,” he spits.

Abigail’s mouth tightens, and anger flares in her eyes, but she says nothing. The boys disappear into the night.

In the aftermath, the store feels unnervingly quiet. Harper chews on her lip.

“Hey—Thanks. I mean, you really didn’t have to, but—”

Abigail blinks and seems to come back to herself. She turns away from the door and softens slightly, but when she looks at Harper, there’s still _something_ swirling in the depths of her gaze.

“I wanted to,” she says.

She doesn’t smile.

They finish their shift with tension lingering in the air, the sort of electricity that precludes a thunderstorm. Harper bids Abigail goodnight and tries to swallow the feeling of wrongness rising in the back of her throat.

Three days later, when she comes into the store, there are two ‘MISSING’ signs pinned up on the community notice corkboard. The boys from that night are unmistakable, even in grainy black and white.

It’s just a coincidence, she tells herself, watching Abigail bag Mrs. Cauldwell’s cat food. Those boys were trouble. They probably got mixed up in something they shouldn’t have. Did something dangerous, and paid the price.

But Harper remembers how Abigail had looked at them, and the resolve knit into her spine, and doubt curls in her stomach.

She never works up the courage to ask.

\---

There’s a 24-hour diner pretty close to Harper’s apartment. They work it into their rotation, going over for pancakes and cherry pie and french fries on nights when Riverside is closed, or sometimes for Sunday brunch. It’s loud in a quiet kind of way, all bright colors and the distant clink of cooks working the griddle. It makes her feel normal—safe—to bring Abigail here. This is what regular people do, she thinks. Bring their friends—their maybe-girlfriends—out for a burger.

Harper wonders when she started couching it like that. Like normalcy was something she has to prove.

“Do you like it here?” she asks Abigail one day, a milkshake glass cradled between her hands. It’s foggy with condensation, wet against her palms like a cold sweat.

Abigail shrugs with one shoulder. She pokes at her own shake with her straw, gaze fixed down at the lumpy mess of white. “More than the last place I was,” she says, bringing the straw to her lips. Her throat moves as she swallows, and Harper’s gaze is captured by the short line of white not buried beneath her patterned scarf. Abigail’s eyes flick up, piercing Harper as easily as a butterfly beneath two pins. “I like _you_.”

She doesn’t quite smile when she says it, just lets her lips curl almost imperceptibly. The fluorescent lights buzz above them, and in the distance, Harper can hear the occasional muffled clang of a pot or tray in the kitchen.

“Good,” Harper says finally, once her tongue has come unglued from the roof of her mouth. There’s something strange about the way Abigail is looking at her, something more pointed than kindness or interest. It makes the backs of her knees sweat against the cheap vinyl booth, and she shifts, making the plastic squeak and groan. “I, uh. I like you too.” Harper can’t help the smile that blooms around her words—one part happy, one part unsettled.

Laughter isn’t just happiness, she thinks distantly—people do it when they’re uncomfortable, too. When they don’t know how else to respond. It spills out of them like panic, like bile. An attempt at dispelling tension—one last, weakened line of defense against a predator.

Harper presses her lips together around the shape of her smile. Lets her gaze drop to the sticky red tabletop.

She rubs her hands over her glass and, out of the corner of her eye, sees Abigail’s mouth pull up slightly in return.

\---

Once, Harper thought that being with Abigail would be a revelation—that after she was allowed past Abigail’s defenses, after she stuck a hand through the illusion, doubt would fall from her eyes like scales.

She was wrong.

She sees more of Abigail now, but for each answer that unfurls, two more step into its place. Each fear assuaged gives birth to another; they gather in the corners of the house like shadows, weaving themselves together, pressing in on all sides until Harper herself feels consumed by them.

Abigail disappears sometimes—leaves after they go to bed but before Harper wakes up, or turns off her cell phone for hours or days at a time. She comes back, she always does, and Harper doesn’t ask where she’s been, who she’s seen.

It’s okay, she tells herself. Everyone needs time to themselves, and privacy, and independence. She’s Abigail’s girlfriend, not her keeper.

But worry gnaws, maggot-like, on the soft meat of her stomach.

She thinks of the two boys in the grocery store, and the posters.

It makes her nervous, paranoid. Even Abigail’s happiness seems to grow teeth—she smiles, and Harper thinks of a wolf baring its teeth. Laughs, and Harper thinks of hyenas. 

There’s still softness between them; Harper’s stomach still flutters when Abigail kisses her, her heart still leaps when they sit down together over lunch or dinner. She loves Abigail despite it all, even if that scared, hollow feeling lurks just beneath.

And it’s not like Abigail ever does anything that proves, definitively, that Harper’s fears are founded. There are suggestions, insinuations—like catching movement in the darkness, or hearing sounds that could be footsteps. Things Abigail says that make Harper wonder, offhand comments and double entendres. Things she does, too—the way she holds herself, or watches someone with the same calculation Harper imagines a wolf would gaze at sheep.

Harper sneaks up on her one morning, while Abigail is standing over the stove cooking eggs and bacon. She comes down from her bedroom to find her there and her heart fills with the sight, so she tiptoes up behind her and lays her chin on Abigail’s shoulder, wraps her arms around Abigail’s waist.

Abigail jerks. She twists, shoulder driving painfully into Harper’s throat, and rams her elbow into Harper’s stomach. The spatula, still dripping with yolk, clatters to the floor as she digs her fingernails into Harper’s arms and wrenches them away.

Harper’s shocked, wheezing as Abigail whirls around and wraps a hand around her throat and _squeezes_.

Harper struggles against her, clawing at Abigail’s arm as Abigail’s other hand yanks the pan off the stove and raises it as if to strike, bacon sizzling as it tumbles out and to the floor. There’s fear and fury in her gaze, and not one shred of hesitation.

For a moment, Harper’s sure she’s going to die.

But Abigail’s face slackens, and her hold on Harper’s throat releases. The pan clatters to the floor, so close to Harper’s feet that she can feel the scalding heat of it, the promise of a burn that never comes.

Harper gasps, coughing, and rubs at her throat. She can feel tears burning at her eyes—fear, humiliation, pain. Abigail’s a blurred shape in front of her—indefinable.

“I’m so sorry,” Abigail says. Her mouth twists, and she backs up until she’s almost pressed against the stove. “I thought you were— I didn’t mean to—” She cuts herself off.

Tears spill over Harper’s lashes; she sucks in a breath that wobbles in the back of her throat, stinging her bruised flesh. She can’t think of anything but that moment when Abigail’s eyes met hers, and she’d been faced with the panic and rage and cold determination that swam therein.

She stumbles out of the kitchen and back up the stairs, heedless of Abigail’s voice calling out behind her.

It takes her a while to calm down—her heart is ratcheting in her chest, and she can barely breathe around the shape of fear that still lodges itself in her throat. It feels like every anxiety she’s had about Abigail has coalesced, solidified in front of her, become something tangible and real.

_I’m so sorry. I thought you were— I didn’t mean to—_

Abigail’s panicked voice rings in her skull. As her pulse slows and terror leaches out of her, Harper pictures the horrified look on Abigail’s face, the speed with which she’d released her once she realized what was happening.

Something dark twists in Harper’s stomach.

She traces a hand over her throat and wonders what happened to Abigail that filled her with so much fear.

\---

When they finally sleep together, the scarf is the last thing Abigail takes off. She lets Harper peel away her cotton t-shirt, her denim shorts, her bra and underwear. Harper actually reaches for the scarf first, but as soon as her fingers brush the rayon fabric, Abigail’s hand darts up and clamps around her wrist like a vise, hard enough to hurt. She holds it there for a moment, while Harper’s heart jackrabbits in her chest, and then puts it against her waist instead.

Harper doesn’t reach for it again.

People have sex with socks on, she thinks as Abigail mouths at her neck, a little hysterical. Why not a scarf?

But Abigail doesn’t keep the scarf on. Once they’re both naked, she backs Harper up smoothly until the backs of her knees hit the bed, pushing her down onto it in one smooth, measured movement. Harper goes willingly, fingers fisting in the bottom of her duvet, and tilts her head up to look as Abigail retreats a step.

She looks like a sculpture—something carved out of marble, smooth and unblemished and perfectly formed. Controlled, Harper thinks, in all the ways she currently isn’t. She holds her breath as Abigail’s fingers trace up over her own stomach, between her breasts, and land on the scarf.

Slowly, she begins to unwind it.

Harper’s fists tighten—even through the sheets, she can feel her fingernails cutting into the flesh of her palms.

Abigail’s eyes are locked on hers. There’s a careful blankness in her expression, a calculated intensity. Her movements are gradual—deliberate.

It feels like she’s been unwrapping her neck for hours. 

Days.

Harper swallows. Her breath shudders out of her quicker than she can draw in air.

When the last of the fabric slides away, Harper’s mouth falls open.

The base of Abigail’s neck is marred by a thick pink and red scar, curling around her throat like a worm. It shifts as she swallows, undulating against Abigail’s pale flesh.

“What happened?” Harper breathes. Her stomach turns. She imagines Abigail’s throat opening like a second mouth, gaping wide and fleshy and red, her esophagus exposed and glistening green as she jerks. Spraying blood like spittle. For a moment, she’s afraid she might be sick.

Eyes fixed on Harper, Abigail opens her hand and drops the scarf; it flutters to the floor slowly, like a ribbon. She steps forward with purpose until she’s nearly standing over Harper.

“My dad tried to kill me,” she says. Her voice doesn’t waver. She straddles Harper, knees on either side of Harper’s thighs, and pushes a hand through her messy curls. Her eyes are shining, but the tears never fall. Her lips tremble, but Harper doesn’t know if it’s grief lining her mouth or something darker. “Then someone else tried to finish the job.”

A small sound slips out of Harper’s throat. She feels dizzy. Unable to look away. Abigail’s hand tightens in her hair, yanks her head back so Harper’s looking right up at her, their faces inches apart.

“Abigail—”

“They made me do things, too. Help them.”

Harper’s heart is beating so hard her head throbs with it. She trembles.

In the low light, Abigail’s eyes look nearly black.

“Like— Like—”

“Help them hurt people—other girls like me.”

Harper halfheartedly tries to pull away, but Abigail doesn’t let her. Instead, she leans closer. Speaks low and weighty, her gaze still hooked into Harper’s like the talons of a bird of prey.

“My dad wanted to kill me ‘cause he loved me too much to let me go,” she says, mouth hovering over Harper’s. “The second time, it was because someone else did.”

Harper’s not sure what she’s trying to say—her mind is too scrambled to grasp at the profound, but all the same, the words unsettle her, make her skin feel too tight. Abigail’s breath mingles with her own, hot and sweet, and she realizes that despite it all—despite the terror and confusion and sympathy—she’s still burning with need.

Abigail closes the last of the distance between them, and Harper kisses her. Lets Abigail push her back to lie flat on the bed, a siren dragging her sailor below water at long last.

\---

After, they lie together in silence, side by side, looking up at the ceiling. The blue light of dusk spills in from the windows, painting the room cool and dim.

Harper can’t stop thinking about Abigail’s hand around her throat. 

_They made me do things, too._

She rolls onto her side and looks at Abigail—at her mussed brown hair, at the line of the scar dragged across her neck.

Abigail’s mouth quirks up; she turns her head on the pillow and faces Harper, who brushes her hair back and traces the outline of where her ear should be. Affection expands in Harper’s chest, swelling so big it takes her breath away. She focuses on the soft sounds of their breathing, the rumble of cars passing by outside.

Long shadows throw themselves across the wall, and from the darkness, Harper’s skin crawls with the feeling of being watched.

“What you said,” she starts, the words thick and awkward on her tongue. “Before, about the girls.”

Abigail doesn’t speak. Just lays there, still as a statue, and watches Harper. She doesn’t blink.

Harper takes a breath.

“Have you— Have you ever killed anyone, Abigail?”

Abigail’s lashes flutter. She looks down demurely, and reaches out to brush her fingertips over Harper's collarbone. One side of her mouth pulls up in the shape of a smile.

“I won’t hurt you,” she murmurs, and looks back up at Harper, eyes cold.

It makes her shiver. A jolt of fear pierces her chest and recedes. “I know.”

Harper traces the line of Abigail’s jaw and thinks of the ocean.

The distance to the shore.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to [nise_kazura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nise_kazura) for beta reading! And a big thank-you to [webofdreams89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/webofdreams89) for giving me an excuse to play around with Abigail, who is an underappreciated fave of mine. Hope you like it!


End file.
